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THE AMERICAN 



E E V L U T T N 



DELIVERED BEFORE THE DUBLIN YOUNG MENS' CHRISTIAN ASSOCIATION 

IN CONNECTION WITH THE UNITED CHURCH OF ENGLAND AND 

IRELAND, OCTOBER 30th, 1862. 



■ BY 

JOHN ELLIOTT CAIRNES, A. M., 

PROFESSOR OF JURISPRrDENCE AND POMTIOAI, KCONOMY IN QDBEn's COLLEGE, GAtWATr 

AND LATE WHATELY PROFESSOR OF POLITICAL ECONOMY IN THE 

UNIVERSITY OF DUBLIN. 



NEW YORK : 

T. J. CROWEN, PUBLISHER AND BOOKSELLER, N.^,. ggg BROADWAY. 

1862. 






THE AMERICAN EEVOLUTION. 



It is with feelings of no ordinary diffidence that I appear before yon' this 
evening — diffidence inspired at once by the distinguished audience in whose pres- 
ence I find myself, and by the topic which I have undertaken to treat. I am not 
^norant that I now address an audience whose cars have become familiar with 
Atarains of eloquence such as I can have no pretension to ofter you, and I know that 
I have to deal with a topic not only of extreme difBculty and delicacy, but one 
respecting which the sympathies of the public have already taken a decided course, 
Mid that course in the direction, I deeply regret to think, the reverse of that in which 
my own sympathies run. So strongly, indeed, do I feel the force of this considera- 
Son, that were I to consult my own tastes merely, the revolution in America is cer- 
;lainly not the subject which I should have selected for this occasion. It has, how- 
ever, been intimated to me that it is the wish of your Association that I should 
address you upon this question (hear) ; and under these circumstances, the question 
being one to which I have given some study, I do not conceive that I should be jus- 
tified in resisting your very flattering request. I propose, therefore, to bring under 
your attention this evening the revolution in America (hear). I undertake the task — 
JsdLj it with the most unaffected sincerity — with a profound sense of my own utter 
iaability to do justice., but still with the hope that I may say enough to induce those 
who hear me to reconsider their opinions (hear), and I add, in the full confidence 
Siat I shall receive at your hands that indulgence which an honest attempt to state 
the truth on an important subject seldom fails to meet from an Irish audience. And 
liere, at the outset, I think it will conduce to a clearer comprehension of what is to 
follow if I state frankly the conclusions which I have myself come to respecting the 
Jimtter in hand. I hold, then, that the present convulsion in America is the natural 
&uit and inevitable consequence of the existence of slavery in that continent (hear) ; 
mi as. slavery has been the cause of the outbreak, so. I conceive slavery is the stake 
which is really at issue in the struggle. 1 hold that tho success of the North means, 
.1 isot the immediate emancipation of slaves, at least the immediate arrest of slavery 
(beaj-), with the certainty of its ultimate extinction ; and, on the other hand, that the 
aGCcess of the South means tho establishment of slavery on a broiidcr and firmer 
iiasis than has hitherto sustained it, with its future indciinite extension. I hold, 
aooreaver, that the form of society which has been reared on slavery in the Southern 
States is substantially a new fact in history, being at once in its nature retrograde 
and aggressive — retrograde as regards the constituents which compose it, and 
aggressivu as regards all other forms of social life with which it may come into 
cmitact, — a system of society which combines the strength of civilization with all 
4he evil instincts of barbarism (hear). Such, as I conceive, is the phenomenon now 
presented by the Southern Confederacy ; and the struggle which we v/itness is but 
the effort of this new and formidable monster to disengage itself from the restraints 
which free society, in self-defense, was drawing around it, in order to secure for its 
(development a free and unbounded field (hear). Such, in a few words, are\ho con- 



THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION. 

elusions at which I havo arrived on this momentous matter. I shall now proceed to 
efate, as succinctly as I can, the considerations by which I have been led to them. 
I maintain, then, in the first place, that the war has had its origin in slavery, and 
in support of this statement I appeal to the whole past history of the United States, 
and to the explicit declarations of the Confederate leaders themselves. What has 
been the history of the United States for the last fifty years ? It has been little more 
than a record of aggressions made by the power which represents slavery, feebly 
and almost. always unsuccessfully resisted by the free States, and culminating iu the 
present war. The qucstiin at issue between the North and the South is constantly 
stated here as if it was the North which was the aggressive party, as if the North 
had been pursuing towards the Southern people a career of encroachment and op- 
pression which reached its climax in Mr. Lincoln's election, and as if the act of seces- 
sion was but an act of self-defense forced upon a people whose measure of humilia- 
tion was full. Now the facts of the case are precisely the reverse of all this. It is 
not the North but the South which virtually for the last half century has been the 
dominant influence in the nation (hear). Southern men, and the nominees of South- 
ern men, have filled the. Presidential chair. Southern men have monopolized the 
offices of the State, represented the country at foreign Courts, and guided the policy 
of the nation (hear). The whole course of domestic legislation in the United States, 
from the year 1820, when the Missouri Compromise was passed, dov/n to the year 
of its repeal, and from its repeal to the latest act of Mr. Buchanan's Government, 
has been directed to the same end — the aggrandizement of Southern interests and 
the consolidation of the slave-power (hoar). Such as its domestic policy has been 
»o also has been its foreign policy in the annexation of Texas, in the conquest of 
half of Mexico, in the lawless attempts on Cuba, in the invasion of peaceaVjle States 
in Central America, in the defense of the slave trade against British cruizers. Every- 
where the same aggressive spirit has been at work, employing now intrigue, now 
viftlencc, now making filibustering raids, now waging open war, but always in favor 
of the same cause— Slavery. 

PROGRESS OF TUE 6LAVK INSTITUTION. 

This has been the history of the United States for the last half-century. Observe 
with what results. In 1790, three years after the nation was estab!i.yhed, the Slave 
States comprised 250,000 square miles; in 1860 that area had grown to 851,000 
square miles. In 1790 the entire number of slaves in the United States was less 
than three-quarters of a million ; in 1860 that number had increased to upwards of 
4,000,000 (hear, hear). Such has been the material progress of the Southern insti- 
tution. Still more striking has been its progress as a political and social power 
(hear, hear). When the nation was founded slavery was dying out in the North 
and was regarded as doomed in the South. It was tolerated, no doubt, in consider- 
ation of the important interests which it involved, but tolerated with shame. Its 
very name was excluded from the public documents, and the thing itself was abso- 
lutely prohibited from all places in which it was not already established, and branded 
as at variance with the fundamental principles of the republic. Such was the posi- 
tion of slavery when the Union v/as foimded ; what is its position when the Union 
ifl dissolved ? It is no longer treated with mere local toleration, as an exceptional 
tabooed system. It claims a free career over the whole continent, and aspires to be 
the basis of a new order of political fabric, and boldly puts itself for*:h as a model 
for the imitation of the world. The struggle, therefore, which now convulses Amer- 
ica is not the struggle of an oppressed people rising against their oppressors, but 



4 THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION. 

tbe revolt of a party whidi lias long ruled the great Republic, to retrieve by arms 
a political defeat — the rising of the representatives of a principle which for half a 
century has been steadily aggressive, to ceraeiit a long series of triumiilis by a last 
effective blow (hear, hear). 

OBJECTS OK THE SOUTH. 

I have said that the purposes of the Southern revolt is to establish a new system. 
of government, of which slavery is to be the basis. This statement is, I am aware, 
vehemently denied in this country, but on this point I must ask you to decide for 
yourselves between the declarations of the Confederate leaders and those who on 
this side of the Atlantic advocate their cause. I hold in my hand a paper of much 
significance ; it is entitled •' The Philosophy of Despotism," and is from the pen of 
an eminent Southern, the Hon. L. W. Spratt, of South Carolina, a man who has taken 
a prominent part in the transactions of the last few years, and who is now editor of 
the Charleston Mercury, one of the most influential, if not the most influential paper 
in the South. He represented Charleston in the celebrated South Carolina Conven- 
tion, which gave the first watchword of' secession, and the confidence which was 
reposed in him by the people of South Carolina was shown in his selection as one of 
the committee appointed by that State to set forth its views before the Convention 
which subsequently met in the South. Mr. Spratt, occupying this position, may, I 
think, state the views of the South with some authority. Let us hear then, what, 
according to Mr. Spratt, is the purpose of the South : — 

" The South," he states, " is now in the formation of a Slave Republic. This, 
perhaps is not admitted generally. There are many contented to believe that the 
South, as a geographical section, is in mere assertion of its independence ; that it is 
instinct with no especial truth — pregnant of no distinct social nature ; that for some 
unaccountable reason the two sections have become opposed to each other ; that 
for reasons equally insufficient, there is disagreement between the peoples that direct 
them; and that from no overruling necessity, no impossibility of co-existence, but 
as mere matter of policy, it has been considered best for the South to strike out for 
herself and establish an independence of her own. This, I fear, is an inadequate 
conception of the controversy. The contest is not between the North and South as 
geographical sections, for between such sections merely there can be no contest ; 
nor between the people of the North and the people of the South, for our relations 
have been pleasant, and on neutral grounds there is still nothing to estrange us. We 
eat together, trade together, and practise yet in intercourse, with great respect, the 
courtesies of common life. But the real contest is between the two forms of society 
which have become cstabllslicd, the one at the North and the other at the South. 
Society is essentially different from Government — as different as is the nut from the 
bur, or the nervous body of the shell fish from the bony structure which surrounds 
it; and within this government two societies had become developed, as variant in 
structure and distinct in form as any two beings in animated nature. The one is a 
society composed of one race, the other of two races. The one is bound together 
but by the two great social relations of husband and wife and parent and child ; the 
other by the three relations of husband and wife, and parent and child, and master 
and slave. The one embodies in its political structure the principle that equality is 
the right of man ; the other that it is the right of equals only. The one embodying 
the principle that equality is the right of man, expands upon the horizontal plane of 
pure democracy ; the other, embodying the principle that it is not the right of man, 
but of equals only, has taken to itself the rounded form of a social aristocracy. Such 



THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION. 5 

are the two forms of society which had come to contest within the structure of the 
recent Union. And the contest for existence was inevitable. Neither could concur 
in the requisitions of the other ; neitlier could expand within the forms of a single 
government without encroachment on the other. Slavery was within the grasp of 
the Northern States, and forced to the option of extinction in the Union or of inde- 
pendence out, it dares to strike, and it asserts its claim to nationality and its right 
to recognition among the leading social sj^stems of the world. Such, then, being the 
nature of the contest, this Union has been disrupted in the eifort of slave society 
to emancipate itself." 

The object of tlie South is to f'jiiud a Slave Republic — a Republic which has 
taken to itself the rounded form of a social aristocracy. But, before leaving this 
subject, there is one point on which I would wish you to hear the opinion of Mr. 
Spratt. It is Avith reference to the position taken by the Confederacy on the slave- 
trade. We all know that the Montgomery Convention, in drawing up the Constitution, 
introduced a clause prohibiting this trade. There are people in this couniry desir- 
ous to regard this as conclusive as to the views of Southern leaders on this subject. 
But in the histbry of the Southern people, and all the circumstances under which 
this constitution was drawn up,' I confess I for one have considerable doubts as to 
the bona fide character of these i)rohibitions, and these have not been removed by the 
speculati(ms of Mr. Spratt. " Then why adopt this measure ?" says he. " I i it that 
Virginia and the other Border States require it ? They uterely require it now, but 
isit certain they will continue to require it? . . . It may be said," he continues, "that 
without such general restriction the value of their slaves will be diminished in the 
markets of the West. They have no right to ask that their slaves or any other pro- 
ducts shall be protected to an unnatural value in the markets of the West. If they 
persist in regarding the negro but as a thing of trade, a thing which they are too good 
to use, but only can produce for others' uses, and join the Confederacy, as Pennsylvania 
or Massachusetts might do, not to support the structure, but to profit by it, it were as 
well they should not join, and we can find no interest in such association." And 
then, referring to what was well understood by the prohibitory clause, the power to 
conciliate European support, Mr. Spratt says : — " They (the European States) will 
submit to an}' terms of intercourse with the slave republic in consideration of its 
markets and its products. An increase of slaves will increase the market and sup- 
ply. They will pocket their philanthroi^y and the profits together." Further he 
says : — " I was the single advocate of the slave-trade in 1853 ; it is now the question 
of time." So far from the representative man of the leading Secession State, South 
Carolina, the exponent of thephilosoi)hy of Secession. I will only ask you to listen 
to one authority more. It is the Vice-President of the Southern Confederation, Mr. 
A. H. Stephens. " The ideas entertained at the formation of the new Constitution 
were tliat the enslavement of the African race was foreign to the laws of nature, — 
that it was wrong in prijiciple, socially, morally, and politically. Our new tJovern- 
ment is fomided on exactly opposite ideas. Its foundations are laid, its corner-stone 
rests upon the sacred truth that the negro is not one with the white man — that sub- 
ordination to the superior race is his native condition. Thus our Government stands 
the first in the world based upon this great philosophical and moral truth. . . . This 
stone, which, was rejected b}' the first builders, has become the chief corner-stone 
in our new edifice." We are told bj' the advocates of a recognition of the South in 
this country that we need not be deterred from this course by the consideration that 
the South is a slave power.- " A slave power !" they exclaim : " Was not the United 
States a slave power ? Are not Spain and the Brazils slave powers, and why should 



6 THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION. 

we become fastidious now?" This is the position taken by the admirers of the 
South in England, but not that taken by the Southerners themselves. " Our new 
Government," says the Vice-President of the Confederacy, " is founded en exactly 
opposite ideas. This is the first Government in the history of the world based upon 
this great philosophical and moral truth." Slavery has before existed, but has nevejr 
before been taken as the corner-stone of an empire, as set forth by ita own Vice- 
President. The South shelters slavery, and constitutes itself undeniably the one 
slave power in the world. ' I say this, that the present convulsion has existed in 
the exigencies of slavery, and that the struggle which succeeded is a consequence 
of slave policy. A year or two ago I should have thought that, having established 
this, I should have certainly established my case ; but really it seems to me that a 
singular change has passed over the minds of my countrymen upon this subject. I 
do not mean to say that there is any considerable number of persons in this coun- 
try or present audience who regard slavery with posiUvo favor, but I do say that 
public feeling on this subject is not what it used to be. i find a disposition amon;],- 
public men and influential organs of public opinion to palliate this aspect of tlio case. 
A tone of apology is taken towards slavery to which British laws have not been 
accustomed. " The negroes," says the Saturday Review, in a recent number, " hav • 
been slaves for centuries. They are used to slavei-y, and for the most part contentt ! 
with it. They are plentifully fed — the food is cheap ; and they are well housed, iu\ 
race-horses and hunters are housed in this country, because they are costly chattel) . 
They are as well clothed as the time requires. In a word, the majority of them 
have no grievance w'latever, except in the fact that they are slaves — a grievance 
which they think not worth speaking of, and one which few of them are tlioughtful 
enough to feel." In other words, four millions of the African race, — a race capable, 
— as we know from the testimony of competent witnesses of their condition in the 
West Indies, from the result of the negro schools in New England, and from occa- 
sional instances which come under our own observation, — ^not merely of feeling the 
obligation to perform the duties of rational creatures, but of receiving a very con- 
siderable amount of intellectual information, — four millions of these people, at least 
capable of human discrimination, have, under the system of the South, been reduced 
to the condition merely of simple brutes. This is the cool admission of a writer 
who seeks, in the description I have quoted, to conciliate public favor towards the 
institution he thus describes. But my present hearers will. I doubt not, disclaim 
the morality of the Saturday Review. Public sentiment on this, as on many other 
subjects, is not yet linked to the original and advanced opinions of that enterprising 
paper (applause). Well, it is important to know the extreme point which the wave 
has yet touched ; and if opinion has not reached the length of the passage I have 
quoted, I think most candid per.sons will admit tliat it has at least been moving in 
that direction. Do we not hear cm all hands that negroes are well cared for, that the 
men of the South arc a ohivahous set of men, and that the system is a patriarchal 
one ? A disclaimer is introduced, but then and there we are warned against being 
carried away by old-fashioned enthusiasms. But what is the character of slavery as 
it exists ? It is a system under which men and women, boys and girls, are exposed, 
like cattle in the market-place, to be bought and sold. It is a system under which a 
whole race of men are deprived of all the rights and privileges of rational creaturea, 
and consigned to a life of toil, in order that another race may live in idleness. It is 
a system under which we are told the m'[^\oca arc perfectly contented, but from 
which they are constantly escaping, in spite of blood-hounds and man-hunters. Gall 
it a paradise if you will, but it is one from which its denizens escape to the Dismal 



THE AMERICAN REVOLDTION. 7 

Swamp, — it is one which, if once left, no negro is anxious to regain (applause). Undei 
this system the human being convicted of no crime may, in strict conformity to the 
law, bo flogged at the <Iiscretion of his fellow man,, who may kill him with the Jaah 
without endin-ing any penalty for the murder. Uiider this system human beings may 
be, as they have been in several instances, burned alive. All property is for the 
negro contraband. Knowledge is made a penal oifeucc. The marriage tie is not i» 
legal recognition, and is regarded with no practical respect. Nay, it is worse than 
this, for the laws permit fathers to enslave and sell their own children ; and there 
are fathers in the Southern States who practically avail themselves of this law. De 
you doubt tliis ? Account, then, fcr the mulattoes, quadroons, and octoroons, many 
of them scarcely darker than Europeans, who form a large proportion of the slaves 
born in the South ? From what source is that white blood blended in their veins 
but from the men who commit their own flesh and blood to the charge of the over- 
seer, or, worse still, to the slave-dealer ? This is an aspect of things which I would 
have passed by, but in the present state the effects are too serious to be blinked at 
by the people of this country, who achieved renown by freeing themselves froBi 
this curse. 

" CniVALRY " OF THK SOUTH. 

We hear much iu these times of the " chivalry " of the South. The Sou JierncrH, 
we are told, are gentlemen, and on this ground are contrasted favorably with the 
North. I shall certainly not deny that the wealthier "classes of the South possess in 
a high degree those qualities which the principle of caste tends to engender — pride, 
courage, loyalty to the interests of their order, capacity for Government, and perse- 
verance in a fixed ■ ourse of policj'. Nay, even as regards the chivalry and gentility 
— things about v. hich our notions generally are somewhat vague — I shall not under- 
take to say that the South does not possess them. I only ask you to remember that 
the chivalry and gentility of the Southern is not incompatible with the systematic 
appropriation of the fruits of another's labor, with laying the whip over the should- 
ers of women, with acts which called down on Marshal Haynau the indignation of 
the London draymen (hear, hear), with turning one's own flesh and blood to i^ecu- 
niary profit, or, to give a practical illustration, with such deeds as that committed 
by a Southern gentleman on the person of Mr. Sumner. Mr. Sumner is one of the 
few public men of the United States who, in moral character and intellectual attaia- 
ments, is worthy to take his place among the scholars, orators, and statesmen of 
Europe. In 1856, when ojjposing the introduction of slavery into Kansas, he made 
in the Senate of the United States one of the most powejrful speeches ever delivered 
in a deliberative assembly, and in this speech he denounced the policy of the slave 
power in language plain and outspoken, but which did not pass what in this country 
is considered the legitimate limit of parliamentary debate. How did the i:liivaIrous 
South take its revenge? Two days afterwards, as Mr. Sumner was sitting at his 
desk, engaged in writing a letter, with "his head bent over his paper, he was ap- 
proached by Mr. Brooks, a representative of South Carolina, who said, " I have read 
your speech ; it is a libel on the South ;" and forthwith, while the words were yet 
passing from his lips, and before Mr, Sumner could rise from his seat, he commenced 
a succession of blows on his bare head with a heavy cane. Mr. Sumner was stunned. 
and fell to the floor. His assailant stood over him and contuiued the assault. Blow 
after blow fell upon his defenceless head. There were senators of the South present, 
and one from the North, Mr. Douglass, of Illinois, a Democrat, and a close ally of 
the South, but there was no'interforence. One old man, indeed, did interfere a little 
towards the close, but for that little he was threatened with chastisement on the 



* THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION. 

spot. Mv. Brooks only desisted just before murder was accomplished. Such, is the 
Hjode in which the chivahous South avenges its grievances. But the most import- 
ant; point in reference to the atta,ck on Mr. Sumner was the manner in which it was 
received hy the Southern people. Not one Press south of the Potomac con- 
demned the act — not one man, not one public bod}-. Not one word of rebuke came 
from any quarter of vhe South. On the contrary, it was adopted and approved by 
alt — recognized as a policy and a system ; and not onl}' the men, but the women of 
Site South combined to heap commendatioris, honors, and rewards upon the pei'pe- 
Snitov. So far as to tlie character, object, and aims of ttie Southern Confederacy. 

• 

POLITICAL MOVEMENT OF THE SOUTH. 

Let me now endeavor to explain the political movement which has brought the 
Free States and the South into collision. And here you will, of course, understand 
that I cannot pretend to do more than give the barest outline of the case. At every 
^ep I must leave difficulties unsolved and objections unanswered. I only ask you 
to believe that, if I do so, it is not because I feel them to be either insoluble or un- 
aaswerable, but simply because the limits of time during which I can occupy your 
attention require that [ should confine myself to those points which are indispensa- 
Mo towards comprehending the drift and meaning of the whole. To understand the 
iafiuences which now agitate the North, and assist you to appreciate the conse- 
quence of the part the North has acted in this great drama, and the results towards 
which it is tending, the first fact to be considered is, tliat the movement of which 
we. now contemplate the results, — the movement which carried Lincoln to power, — 
wsis a reaction against the influences which had been previously predominant in the 
Union, which had controlled almost the whole of its past policy. From 1820 to 
18C0 the Goveritment of the United States has, with the exception of a few short 
ifft^ervals, been in the hands of tlie party composed of Southern politicians, and of 
fi*at section of the North which for political ptu'poses may be regarded as Southern 
— the Northern Democrats. Of this political combination I do not overstate the 
ease when I say'that the leading idea, the comparative aim. almost the single pur- 
pose, was to extend slavery, and to acliieve political power by extending it. Under 
&& influence of this party public morality in America has deteriorated as public 
morality never before deteriorated in any country in the same space of time (hear). 
The race of political men has declined, ])olitical honesty is scarcely to be found. 
Folitics has become a by-word. In spite of a material prosperity which astonished 
Sie world, America, in all mgral qualities, in all the qualities which adorn a nation. 
Itas rapidly retrograded. Down to 185,0 this tendency to retrograde met with no 
aeriOiCs obstruction, but in that year the evil began to work its own cure. The ex- 
®C8ses of tlie dominant party awoke some of the best minds in the United States to 
» sense of the fearful career along which it was hurrying, and the certain ruin which 
was ahead. A reaction took place, and ^new party was formed. It Avas this party 
which carried Lincoln to power. It is the same which is now rapidly transforming 
■fee whole policy of the Republic. The principles of the Re])ublican party are such 
sax the opponents of the polic}- of the South necessarily ought to have. 

THE QUESTION AT ISSUE. 

The question at isstte in the vast contest respecting slavery in this rebellion has 
a»i been as frequently supposed in this country, whether slavery should bo abol- 
iiahed or perpetuated, but whether it should be restricted to its present limits or 
asKtended over the entire of the Union. Down to the present hour, or, more correctly, 



THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION. 9 

down to the recent proclamation of Mr. Lincoln, no considerable politician proposed 
to interfere with slavery in the States where it was already established, and the 
efforts of the party opposed to slavery on the one hand, and of the slavery party on 
the other, have been directed exclusively to the " Territories." I must explain the pe- 
culiar signification which the word " Territory " bears in the United States,*and the 
political nomenclature of the United States. A Territory does not signify, as with us, 
whole acres of country, but only that portion which has not yet been V)rought under 
the control of state Governments. Accordingly, " Territory," in the political discus- 
sions of the United States, is opposed to '• State," the State being, for all local pur- 
poses, rmder its own Government, while a " Territory," having no local Government, 
comes directly under the cognizance and control of the Federal authority. The 
Territories are, in short, the unsettled portions, and include those vast regions 
which stretch away to the Pacific. . These it is which form the question between 
slavery and freedom. 

When the Union was founded the slave interest was content with a small local 
toleration — it made no claim to extension beyond its existing limits. In proof of 
this I need only point to a region which then corresponded to the word Territories, 
but is now comprised in the Free States, Ohio, Illinois, and Michigan. These had 
been ceded to the Central Government by Virginia, the most powerful of the slave 
States, and the ordinance providing for its government was drawn up by Jefferson, 
a Southern slave-owner. If the slave psirtj at that time considered that it had any 
claims, this was a case in which it could be advanced, the territory in question hav- 
ing been originally the property of a slave State, and the statesman to whom the 
preparation of a Charter for its government was intrusted had been a native of that 
State. No such claim was advanced. On the contrary a clause was introduced into 
the ordinance which forever prohibited the introduction of slavery into the Terri- 
tory. I say, therefore, at the outset of the history of the United States, the slavery 
pajty were content to remain within the existing limits, and advanced no preten- 
sions on the unsettled Territory of the nation. At an early period of the present 
century, however, we find that, with the extension of the cotton cultivation, slavery 
interests grew in proportion, and, in 1818, the pretension was openly advanced to 
carry slavery into the Territories. The first attempt was the demand to admit Mis- 
souri as a slave State. A violent opposition was given, and the result was the " Mis- 
souri Compromise," by which tlie slavery party gained their object — the admission 
of Missouri, but with the provision that in future slavery should not be introduced 
beyond a certain parallel of latitude. This was the first triumph of the Southern party 
— the division of the Republic into free and slave Territories (hear, hear). Such was 
the position of the question till 1820, at which time the entire Territory, which, 
under the Missouri Compromise, fell to the South, having been appropriated. The 
next step was to endeavor to break the .Missouri Compromise. The Missoiu-i Com- 
promise was therefore denounced by the South as unjust. It was urged that the 
proper parties to determine the question of slavery or no slavery in the Territories 
were not the Federal Government but the settlers. A bill recognizing this princi- 
ple, which was justly called the " Squatter sovereignty,", was passed in the year 
1854, — a bill by which the unsettled lands were virtually thrown open, to be scram- 
bled for by the contending parties. This was the second triumph in the career of 
aggression. The Territories were now all thrown open to slavery throughout their 
whole extent. The results expected, however, were not realized. The measure of 
1854, though it threw open the Territories to slavery, did not actually establish it, 
but left it to be decided by the settlers, and it turned out that in the absence of busi- 



10 THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION. 

nees of colonization the slave States were no match for the free (hear, hear). Thus, 
in Kausaa, in spite of every intrigue on the part of the slave party, their defeat was 
ignominious and complete (hoar). The theory of the squatter 'sovereignty was, 
therefore, laid aside, and in its place a new doctrine propounded ; it was said that 
slave property had a riglit to be recognized as such hy the Constitution, — that, if 
property at all, it was as much so in one part of the Union as in another,- -that the 
first duty of (lovernmcnt was to protect property wherever its jurisdiction extended ; 
and the conclusion drawn from those premises was that it was the duty of the Fed- 
eral Government to protect slavery in all parts of the Union — in the Territories as 
well as in the States, and in tlie Free States as well as in the Slave (hear). 

This was the last culminating pretension of the slave power: it amounted to 
nothing less than a. demand to convert the whole Union into one grand slave-holding 
domain. Not only was the pretension advanced, but important steps were taken to 
make it good. By dint of^ packing in the courts of justice, with Southern partisans, 
a decision was obtained called the Dred Scott Decision, which fully bore out the 
views of the slavery party. So far as the law was concerned, the triumph of the 
South was accomplished. It was laid down by the highest authority that in the eye 
of the law there was no difference between a slave and a horse, and, as a man may 
take his horse where he j^leases through the Union, and as the Government was 
bound to protect him, so he might take his slave where he pleased, and had the 
same right to be maintained in possession. Something more was wanted to make 
good the slave party. They had need of a Government to act upon the principle 
thus vindicated. This power they were resolved to obtain at the next Presidential 
election ; and it was because they failed in this object that Secession was pro- 
claimed (great applause). So that you have now before you the source of aggres- 
sion against which the Free States now league. As the ground of the South was 
the extension of slavery, so the ground taken b}" the North was its non-extension. 
I say non-extension, not the abolition of slavery, for the Constitution had guaranteed 
slavery in the States in which it existed, and it was not part of tlie policy of the 
Republican party to violate the Constitution. Slavery, therefore, in the States was 
not directly threatened, but it was declared that, for the future, slavery should be 
excluded from all the Territories of the Republic. It was upon this position that 
Mr. Lincoln was raised to power, and it was because it triumphed that the South 
seceded. We have now traced the history of this movement up to the point when 
the South was breaking out. I will ask j'ou now to follow me while I indicate the 
course of the Northern policy, mider the aid of the Republican party, since that 
time. When the new? of the outbreak first reached this country, as you will rem- 
ember, the feeling of the public, though not of an energetic character on the whole 
— went for the North, it Vjeing understood that a contest was about to break outbe^ 
twecn the free and slave States, and that the object of the North was to put down 
slavery. One of President Lincoln's first acts on entering on the Government was 
to declare that he had no intention to interfere with slavery where it was estab- 
lished. Upon hearing this, public opinion at once veered about. It was then 
assumed that the war was xinconneotod with slavery, and our sympathies, under the 
skilful guidance of secessionists in England, were carried round to the Southern 
aide. In view, now, of the facts of the case, I ask 3'ou if our early expectation was 
not unreasonable, and I will not shrink to also ask you if our moderate calculations 
vrwrc not imjust. We expected tlie North to throw itself into the struggle against 
slaver}', but upon what grounds ? The abolition of slavery in the States where it 
was established had never been any part of the Northern programme. The Repub- 



THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION. 11 

lican party had always disavowed this, aud declared its determination to abide by 
the Constitution. I think L might go further and ask you whether it would have 
been wise to have resorted at once to revolutionary measures while the civil war 
was pending, and while a chance remained of accomplishing an object by peaceful 
nseans. But, secondly, I will ask you if our moderate calculation was not unjust. It 
is ti-ue the North only took u[) arms to defend the Constitution — the Constitution 
under which, in despite of its furtherance of the purposes of a pro-slavery party, it 
enjoyed a career of at least material prosperity. It took up arms to maintain a 
Union which gave to the American people the status of a great Power in the world. 
These were undoubtedly the reasons which inspired the Northern rising. Never- 
theless, I have always contended, and recent experience has certainly not induced 
me to change my mind, that the war, Avhatever might be the issue wliich might be 
joined, was in essence an anti-slavery war (applause). 

If I knew that the Union which the North resolved to defend was only endangered 
by the exigencies of slavery, I knew that the South demanded secession for no other 
purpsse than to spread slavery over the length and breadth of tropical America ; and 
therefore I felt confident that, this being the chief object of the struggle, it was to this 
issue that the war must ultimately come. What light has experience throv/n on the 
question ? I ask you to look to the effects of the present combat. In March last Presi- 
dent Lincoln issued a proclamation inviting the State Governors to advise a plan of 
emancipation, and passed an act abolishing slavery in the District of Columbia ; later 
again a still more important act. — the exclusion forever of slavery from the Territo- 
ries ; and, lastly, "we can point to the recent treaty with Great Britain conceding the 
right of search of Federal ships, and this at once effected what had hitherto been 
an idle protest — the blockade of the African coast. These have been the achieve- 
ments of the North,— achievements any one of which is sufficient to give a distinct 
anti-slavery character to the policy of the Federal Government, achievements which 
will bear fruit, and cause happiness and prosperity to future generations of Ameri- 
can people, when all this slave-trade has passed away and been forgotten (applause). 
Such, up to the present time, has been the course of the American revolution, but 
within the last month the policy of the North has undergone a radical change. The 
anti-slavery measures and all the other measures possess this character, that they 
are strictly constitutional. But to give them effect there was need of something 
more than the Act of Congress. The South has taken up arms for a slave Congress, 
and nothing short of a military defeat of the South would bring it to terms. That 
was the essential conditional to the success of the new policy on which the Nort^i 
had entered. I confess I am one of those who conceive that the fullilraent of this 
condition — the defeat, not the permanent subjugation of the South — might have 
been accomplished without having recourse to any other measures than those already 
put in force ; but highly as I was disposed to view the militar)'^ prowess of the Con- 
federates — formidable as I thought it, I confess their advantages have exceeded my 
expectations ; and, after the experience of the present year, I see no chance of their 
being effectually humbled except by an appeal, on the Northern side, to principles 
more powerful than any yet invoked (applause) ; for it has been well said that while 
the South has enjoyed the full advantage of the awful principles of slavery, the 
North has only availed itself partially and with hesitation. The cause of slavery, 
decidedly asserted and logically carried out, has rallied the whole Southern popula- 
tion to the centre of secession ; while the North, substantially fighting the cause of 
freedom, but fettered by the Constitution, has hitherto shrunk from making appeals 
to those sentiments which freedom inspires. To give a practical illustration of the 



12 TilE AMERIOAX REVOLUTION. 

difficulties which the North experiences : while the South does not hesitate to avail 
itself of the services of the negroes, eitlier in the camp or on the plantation, the 
North has not taken advantage of them. Wliat then? Is freedom to succumb? Is 
the North to lay down its arras ? Is it to accept of the peace dictated by a triumph- 
ant slave i^ower?- and are the fairest portions of the New World to be made the 
field for the propagation of the greatest curse Avhich mankind has yet known? I 
say, for my part, most emphatically. No, (applause.) Before freedom is pronounced 
defeated, let it at least have a fair chance. Let it use both its hands. Let it put 
fortli all its power. Let it oppose to the admirers of slavery the whole force of its 
fair intentions, and this is the resolution which slavery has forced upon the North. 
I may say slavery has encountered freedom clogged with the provisions of the Con- 
stitution. 

These have been flung aside, and Ireedoin and slavery find themselves face to 
face in the deadly combat. But we are tuld the negroes will rise and perpetrate 
wholesale and indiscriminate massacres, and a scries of Cawni:)ore8 v/iil be the re- 
sult. So says the Times. For my own part I have no faith in such predictions. I 
distrust the source from whence they proceed (hear, hear). I cannot forget that the 
same authority which now tells us that the negroes are ready to rise in repine and 
murder their masters but the other day assured us that they are completely con- 
tented, happy, and loyal (applause), i cannot forget that the same censor wiio now 
denounces the Northern Government for proclaiming emancii^ation onl,y a few years 
ago denounced it with scarcely less force for not proclaiming emancipation. I can- 
not forget that the same seer who now indulges his imagination in pictin-ing the 
horrors which freedom will produce has, from the commencement of the war down 
to the present time, been uttering prophecy after prophecy until we find prophecy 
after prophecy falsified by the events. I cannot forget that these denunciations 
proceed from the same generous critic who levelled insults at free America in order 
to divest her of her prospects. I see, therefore, and I distrust the sources from 
which these proceed (applause). For my part, 1 neither believe that the negroes 
are the contented, loyal beings they are described in one column of the Times, nor 
the ruthless savages they are depicted in the next. I think it will be nearer the 
truth to say they resemble the harmless cattle in our fields, with an intelligence 
somewhat more developed, and an instinct of self-interest somewhat stronger ; and 
uidess driven to desperation by acts of atrocity, such as that mentioned in the tele- 
grams to-day, which "stated that 17 negroes had been hung for having in their pos- 
session copies of President Lincoln's proclamation, the probability is that they will 
act much as cattle, could they but understand the import of the message which is 
sent to them. When the opportunity offers thfey will probably fly to the Federal 
lines. This is what instinct only will teach them, it is what they did when the 
war commenced, but then the war was conducted on constitutional princi})les, and 
the fugitives were sent back to serve the masters against whom those who sent 
them back were fighting. This can hajipen no moie. The atteirtpt to carry on the 
war on constitutional principles has been abandoned. The proclamation has super- 
ceded this. The Federal lines will henteforth become for the negro a sure harbor 
of refuge, and, judging from what has already occurred, and what we know of the 
system, probably the result A\ill be a grand stampede of the negro population. That 
is the practical result which I expect from the proclamation, and it is a result of 
vast importance. It will derange the whole internal system of the South, and, by 
striking at its foundation, undermine the whole edifice. That is what it appears to 
me the proclamation is calculated to effect. That isolated instances of murder will 



THE AMP:RICAN revolution. 13 

occur is indeed j>robable. Tlie Devil does not leave the body without rending it, 
and it is, indeed, fearful to think of the consequences which may bo in store for the 
South, consequences by which even the prophecies of the Times may for once be 
fulfilled ; but if this be 'the course which events are to take — if Southern slave mas- 
ters are, in their guilty fear, to commence a wliolesale carnage of innocent men, then, 
I say, their blood be on their own heads, and tliose who have sown the wind may 
reap the whirlwind (applause). But I shall here be asked " Where is this to end — 
to what purpose is this tremendous sacrifice of human life ?" Is the conquest of 
the South possible (no, no), and is its subjection to the North possible or desirable ? 
(Hear, hear.) I, for my part, have never thought so, and I do not think so now (hear, 
hear). The restoration of the Union in its former proportions appears to me, I con- 
fess, absolutely chimerical ; and I have seen indications that this conviction is forc- 
ing itself on thoughtful minds in the Northern States. But, granting that the South 
cannot be permanently conquered, does it follow that it is impossible to stay the 
plague of slavery, to recover extensive districts in the Border States, already sub- 
stantially free, to throw back the destroyers behind the barrier of the Mississippi ? 
The impossibility of this has not j'et been proved, and till it is, I, for one, cannot 
raise ray voice for peace (hear). Another year of war such as has now been waged, 
but on possibly a still more tremendous scale, is certainly, there is no doubt, an 
awful i^rospect ; but the future of a Slave Power extending its dominion over half a 
continent, consigning a vast race of men to utter and hopeless ruin — this is a pros- 
pect which, to my mind, is more fearful still. 

CONCLUSION. 

In the foregoing remarks I have endeavored to set forth what appeared tome the 
grand principles in conflict in the American Revolution, and the scope of my re- 
marks has gone to show that the course of the North is substantially the cause of 
humanity and civilization. I should, however, be wholly misconceived if it were 
supposed I was not fully sensible of much that is open to censure in the conduct of 
the Northern people (hear). There has been, no doubt, much imcompetency, uxuch 
hesitancy in the path of duty, — no small amount of hesitancy, many acts of petty 
tyranny, and on the part of one General, cfl'usions of brutal insolence (hear and hiss- 
es). I do not scruple to say that the principles held by one large party in the North- 
em States are as detestable as any that prevail in the South — I refer to the Northern 
Democratic party, long the lackey of the South, and now anxions to resume its me- 
nial duties (hear, hear) — the party which brings, down disgrace on the Northern 
cause — the party which the Times newspaper delights to honor (hear). I say, as fai- as 
this iiarty is concerned I can find no distinction between it and its Southern patrons, 
except it is still more despicable (hear). Into the incidents of the movement 1 have 
not time to enter. I confine myself to the important facts, and those facts confirm 
the conclusion I sought to establish, that amidst all that is dark in the principle of 
American society, a principle of good is at work, a dawn of promise has been dis- 
closed, — a grand healthy reaction has set in (hear). For the last forty years the 
course of the United States has been a retrograde one. I attribute this princi- 
pally to its comi)licity with the great sin (hoar). There may be other causes, but, I 
believe, this is the chief. Slavery, acting upon extraordinary material prosperity, 
has sent a rot into the whole body politic, but the crisis of the disease has arrived, 
and symptoms of returning health show themselves. The principle of evil has in- 
deed a strong hold on his victim, but he is visibly relaxing his grasp (hear). Look 
at the feeling which the proclamation of emancipation has called forth. The Times 



11 THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION. 

predicted that it would disintegi-atc the North. On the contrary, it is now welding 
it together in a glow of noble enthusiasm (hear, hear). la this a time for England 
to throw discouragement on the cause of freedom, and, in fear lest the motives of 
the North should not be of tlie highest order, to throw the i^hole weight of her mor- 
al influence into the scale of the Slave Power? I canot think so (hear). I am not 
without hope that England will yet shake herself free from that yearning towards a 
slave Power, and once more assert her ancient enthusiasm as the country of Wilber- 
force and Clarkson, the emancipator of slaves, the champion of the oppressed, the 
friend of freedom in every form and in every quarter of the globe (loud and pro- 
longed applause). 

His Excellency the Lord Lieutenant then said : — My Lord Bishop, Ladies, and 
Gentlemen — I assure you I have felt great pleasure in having found myself able to 
attend at the opening of another winter session of this flourishing and valuable in- 
stitution (applause), and I gladly discharge the honorable office wliich has upon 
former occasions been assigned to me of asking you all to join with me in a cordial 
vote of thanks to the accompHshed lecturer for his most able and eloquent address 
(applause). Ii is not the first time of my becoming acquainted with Professor 
Cairnes. I remember that I first heard him some years ago discussing with singular 
clearness and ability some very knotty points of political economy, at the meeting 
of the British Association, within the walls of Trinity College (applause). And what 
I heard from him and of him made me exceedingly glad when an opportunity occur- 
red of conferring iipon him a vacant chair in the Queen's College of Galway (ap- 
plause). "With respect to the lecture which wo have just heard with such gratify- 
ing attention, the subject clearly, at this special time, is second to none in importance 
or delicacy, and certainly the light in which he has presented that subject to us does 
not in any \vay detract from the importance or from the responsibility of those who 
have to deal with it. It perhaps had a more intimate interest for myself, inasmuch as I 
have personally visited that great American Continent, and had become myself fami- 
liar with mauy of the actual battle-grounds and scenes of conflict. The proud Poto- 
mac, the winding James River, the .gentle Ohio, and the brimming Mississippi, still 
glide before my memory with all their distinctive features (applause). And most 
shocking, indeed, it is to me when I reflect that this wealth of waters formed by the 
Almighty to fertilize the earth and blend its myriad families, of late should only have 
wafted the instruments of mutual slaughter, and that these endless slopes of waving 
verdure on which I have gazed with such fond admiration should have been red- 
dened by the blood of fellow-countrymen, kinsmen — their own kinsmen and our own 
(loud applause). I feel that I shall best fall in with that, as it aj)pears to me, a wise 
principle of neutrality which the Government to which I have the honor to belong, 
backed, I believe, by the* general sense of the people, have hitherto maintained 
throughout this distressing conflict (hear, hear) ; and, I am sure, that maintaining 
that principle, and, not presuming to express any opinion myself upon the respective 
merits of the conflicting parties, I yet shall be giving vent to the wish which must 
pervade every Christian assembly, that, under the overruling shaping of Divine 
Providence, more moderate counsels, and a milder spirit may for the future prevail, 
that slavery may loosen its hideous grasp, and peace resume her placid sway (loud ap- 
plause). He moved that the cordial thanks of the meeting be presented to Professor 
Cairnes for his most abk; and eloquent lecture. 

The Solicitor-General said he had great pleasure in discharging the duty assigned 
to him of seconding the vote of thanks proposed by the Earl of Carlisle. It was not 
the first time he had the pleasure of hearing Mr. Cairnes discussing in that lucid 



THK AMERICAN REVOLUXrON. 15 

manner which ho alvvaja commauded questions of economic science. lie had the 
pleasure of knowing him in Trhiity College, where he filled the chair which ho (tho 
Solicitor-General^ had occupied since that time, lie had also had the pleasure on 
many occasions of hearing him lecture in other places, and, certainly, whatever 
opinion they might form as to tho subject which he brought before them that even- 
ing, they must bo all unanimous in attributing to him the merit that he had brought 
to tlie discussion an amount of research and ability which it would be diflicult to 
surpass. He did not wish, nor would it be proper for him to express any opinion 
with regard to tho fearful contest now waging. He could only say that, as a man, 
he did not feel his sympathy enlisted on behalf of either of the combatants. He 
could not give his sympathy to the South, who were fighting to extend the system 
of slavery, and he confessed he could not find in the North the champion of human- 
ity and civilization. They knew perfectly well that the fate of the negro race in 
America depended upon the result of the conflict. They could not tell what these 
results might be, and Professor Cairnes had truly said that prophecy on the subject 
had only been made in order to show that it would be falsified. He ventured to say 
there was no man endowed with wisdom enough to predict what would be the re- 
sults of the war. They could only hope that tho same great Being who has, by 
earthquakes and other great convulsions of nature, purified the air, and rendered it 
capable of sustaining life, would so govern and shape the course of events as yet to 
oauso some good to arise out of this fearful war, and that Ho would elevate and im- 
prove that portion of the human race who occupied so degraded a position in the 
South, and in the North were detested and despised, that they might rise to the dig- 
nity and rank of free men, and that they might see them in another land enjoying 
that liberty and independence which, he feared, they never could enjoy in the United 
States of America (applause). 

Tho Chairman put the resolution, which was carried, and the proceedings termi- 
nated with the Doxology. 



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